Posted on 11/13/2004 10:52:34 AM PST by LouAvul
REDWOOD CITY -- Two families hung on a single word: Guilty.
The word knifed through the air in a San Mateo County courtroom Friday, ending almost 23 months of uncertainty for Laci Peterson's family and plummeting her husband's relatives into a desperate wait to see whether he will be sentenced to death.
Scott Peterson is guilty of murdering his pregnant wife and their unborn son, jurors decided after deliberating for less than eight hours, an abrupt climax to a wrenching legal odyssey.
Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, began sobbing as a court clerk read the first verdict: guilty of murdering Laci Peterson.
......snip.......
The six-man, six-woman jury returned a first-degree murder conviction in the Christmas Eve 2002 slaying of Laci Peterson, 27, and second-degree murder in the death of a baby to be named Conner.
Whether Peterson will be sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole, will be decided in a second trial phase set to begin Nov. 22.
The 32-year-old fertilizer salesman from Modesto smiled and chatted with one of his attorneys before the jury entered the courtroom. He showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
.....snip.........
Scott Peterson's mother, Jackie Peterson, dropped her head as the verdict was read. Noticeably absent from the courtroom was the defendant's father, Lee Peterson, and the lead defense attorney, Mark Geragos.
"I feel bad I wasn't there," Geragos said by phone shortly after the verdict was read. He declined to comment further.
Geragos was in Southern California and had not anticipated a verdict coming back so quickly, a friend of the Los Angeles attorney said. Deliberations restarted Wednesday after the dismissal of the jury foreman, and jurors did not deliberate Thursday because of the Veterans Day holiday.
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
Heck of a guy, eh? (Sarcasm=off)
There is a VERY good chance the jury will come back with death, IMO.
I'm pretty sure the other inmates have decided on Scott's sentence.
What good will a Death sentence do? Don't they have a moratorium reduing death to life imprisonment? Send him to a state that ACTUALLY carries out death penalties. (MO, TX, FL to name a few.)
My brother and I discussed this over lunch today. When you line everything up, from the planning, the lying, the complete lack of remorse.
The death penalty is the only choice.
But like others have said, if he gets life in prison, it will be a short one.
Yeah, Geragos is truly salted earth. Hmmm, wonder where Scott's dad was? I missed the reading of the verdict, so I didn't see who was in the courtroom.
Joy, pinging you from our previous conversation.
Wouldn't hurt my feelings, nor would it if OJ had a fatal accident...........
What good will a death sentence do? I was going to say that it would mean that the taxpayers wouldn't have to feed and clothe his worthless ass for the next 50 yrs, but then I remembered how long it will take for the appeals to finally be exhausted.
Even though it's a run on sentence, I'm going to leave it. CA is terrible when it comes to carrying out death sentences. At least he can't hurt anyone else.
He was in San Deigo.
Death Row in San Quentin prison is pretty brutal in and of itself.
Well they live in San Diego, but I'm wondering why he wasn't there in the courtroom? Ahhh, who cares.
But God had the other page of the Plan and voila, the bodies emerged at the site of his alibi. Imagine that!!
Going from Selling Fertilizer to Being Fertilizer.
And Geragos will walk away with a cool mil at least!!
Darn shame we can't throw him in the lake and let the little fishies eat him.
I would not be in favor of the death penalty in this case. Having said that, my support of the Death Penalty has been waning these last few years.
Of all the stupid public figures in recent memory, Scott Peterson has to be the dumbest. If he no longer wanted to be married to Laci all he had to do was divorce her. Yes, he'd have to pay alimony and child support, but Laci was very pretty and would probably have married again. He'd have to pay child support for 18 years. But isn't that a better scenario than now facing death or life in prison? And of the two I don't know which is worse.
I want to see him violently, and humiliatingly murdered in prison - that would be 'eye for an eye'
I'm not sorry for Peterson's mother (So, set me a'fire). She's had no pity for Laci's family. She told her son, "deny, deny, deny." These were no strangers whom he murdered. That mother didn't give a damn about those whom her son injured.
I think the dad was ashamed of his son for being the murderer the he and his wife know peterson is.
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